“The lives of 1.7 million children will be needlessly lost this year [2000] because world governments
have failed to reduce poverty levels” source 12

The developing world now spends $13 on debt repayment for every $1 it receives in grants.
source 13

A few hundred millionaires now own as much wealth as the world’s poorest 2.5 billion people.
source 14

“The 48 poorest countries account for less than 0.4 per cent of global exports.”
source 15

“The combined wealth of the world’s 200 richest people hit $1 trillion in 1999; the combined
incomes of the 582 million people living in the 43 least developed countries is $146 billion.” source 16

“Of all human rights failures today, those in economic and social areas affect by
far the larger number and are the most widespread across the world’s nations and large numbers of people.” source 17

“Approximately 790 million people in the developing world are still chronically undernourished,
almost two-thirds of whom reside in Asia and the Pacific.” source 18

According to UNICEF, 30,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some
of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life
makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.”

That is about 210,000 children each week, or just under 11 million children under five years of age,
each year. source 19

For economic growth and almost all of the other indicators, the last 20 years [of the current form
of globalization, from 1980 - 2000] have shown a very clear decline in progress as compared with the previous two decades
[1960 - 1980]. For each indicator, countries were divided into five roughly equal groups, according to what level the countries
had achieved by the start of the period (1960 or 1980). Among the findings:

Growth: The fall in economic growth rates was most pronounced and across the board for all groups
or countries.

Life Expectancy: Progress in life expectancy was also reduced for 4 out of the 5 groups of countries,
with the exception of the highest group (life expectancy 69-76 years).

Infant and Child Mortality: Progress in reducing infant mortality was also considerably slower during
the period of globalization (1980-1998) than over the previous two decades.

Education and literacy: Progress in education also slowed during the period of globalization.

“Today, across the world, 1.3 billion people live on less than one dollar a day; 3
billion live on under two dollars a day; 1.3 billion have no access to clean water; 3 billion have no access to sanitation;
2 billion have no access to electricity.” source 21

The richest 50 million people in Europe and North America have the same income as 2.7 billion poor
people. “The slice of the cake taken by 1% is the same size as that handed to the poorest 57%.” source 22

The world’s 497 billionaires in 2001 registered a combined wealth of $1.54 trillion,
well over the combined gross national products of all the nations of sub-Saharan Africa ($929.3 billion) or those of the oil-rich
regions of the Middle East and North Africa ($1.34 trillion). It is also greater than the combined incomes of the poorest
half of humanity. source 23

A mere 12 percent of the world’s population uses 85 percent of its water, and these 12 percent
do not live in the Third World. source 24

The total wealth of the top 8.3 million people around the world “rose 8.2 percent to $30.8 trillion
in 2004, giving them control of nearly a quarter of the world’s financial assets.”

In other words, about 0.13% of the world’s population controlled 25% of the world’s assets
in 2004. source 27

Notes and Sources

1) This figure is based on purchasing power parity (PPP), which basically suggests that prices of goods in countries tend to equate under floating exchange rates
and therefore people would be able to purchase the same quantity of goods in any country for a given sum of money. That is,
the notion that a dollar should buy the same amount in all countries. Hence if a poor person in a poor country living on a
dollar a day moved to the U.S. with no changes to their income, they would still be living on a dollar a day. In addition,
see the following:

In addition, in the United States for example, the poverty threshold for a family of four has been
estimated to be around eleven dollars per day. The one dollar a day definition then misses out much of humanity to understand
the impacts. Even the two dollars per day that I have pointed out here, while affecting half of humanity, also misses out
the numbers under three or four, or eleven dollars per day. These statistics are harder to find, and as I come across them,
I will post them here!

More fundamental than that though, for example, is a critique from Columbia University, called How not to count the poor. The report describes an ill-defined poverty line, a misleading and inaccurate measure of purchasing
power equivalence, and false precision as the three main errors that may lead to “a large understatement
of the extent of global income poverty and to an incorrect inference that it has declined.” (Emphasis added). This allows
the World Bank to insist that the world is indeed “on the right track” in terms of poverty reduction strategy,
attributing this “success” to the design and implementation of “good” or “better policies”.

But the statistic is not lost on some of the most prominent people in the world

The New York Times in one of their email updates, in their Quote of the Day section,
for July 18, 2001 provided the following quote: “A world where some live in comfort and plenty, while half of the human
race lives on less than $2 a day, is neither just, nor stable.” — President Bush

See also James Wolfenson, The Other Crisis, World Bank, October 1998 who said: “Today,
across the world, 1.3 billion people live on less than one dollar a day; 3 billion live on under two dollars a day; 1.3 billion
have no access to clean water; 3 billion have no access to sanitation; 2 billion have no access to electricity.” (See
also note 21 below.)

Koffi Anan, UN Secretary General, in a speech on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, 17 October 2000, said “Almost half the
world’s population lives on less than two dollars a day, yet even this statistic fails to capture the humiliation, powerlessness
and brutal hardship that is the daily lot of the world’s poor.”

18) World Resources Institute Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems, February 2001, (in
the Food Feed and Fiber section). Note, that dispite the food production rate being better than population growth rate, there is still
so much hunger around the world.